Sesame Street’s Asian Muppets

By Tim | Wednesday, November 11, 2009 | View Comments

boombah_chamki-hp Google helped bring attention this week to Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary by publishing Google doodles with various characters from Sesame Street. For those of us in the U.S. we saw Cookie Monster, Big Bird and other familiar muppets integrated with the iconic Google logo. But in other international markets, Google came up with special doodles that featured local Sesame Street characters, like the one shown here for India featuring Boombah and Chamki – India’s stars on Gali Gali Sim Sim (India’s Sesame Street). Boombah is a vegetarian cat who loves to dance. Chamki is an wondering schoolgirl who loves to learn and knows karate.

It turns out there are local Muppet characters developed for almost every international location that Sesame Street has a broadcast. In addition to the Indian characters, there’s the ones for the Chinese market, Hu Hu Zhu and Xiao Mei Zi, the Bangladeshi market, Shiku and Tuktuki, the Filipino market, Kiko Matsing and Pong Pagong, the Japanese market, Meg, Teena and Mojabo, among others.

With my upcoming trip to Taiwan with my daughter, and this new found discovery of local Sesame Street productions, I’m going to keep an eye out for an airing of Sesame Street in Chinese, so she can watch and I can see her reaction, especially since Elmo has always been one of her favorite Sesame Street characters. Maybe she’ll find a local Asian one to adore as well.

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http://www.schemamag.ca/ Jordana

Very cool! Good on Google for showcasing international characters that many of us North Americans aren’t even aware of.
http://www.schemamag.ca Jordana

Very cool! Good on Google for showcasing international characters that many of us North Americans aren’t even aware of.
hadashi

not only am i all excited to learn that there are culture-specific, Asian muppets, but thanks for linking to them, thus introducing me to MUPPET WIKI. the world is a warmer, furrier place now, knowing that a site called MuppetWiki exists. pardon me while i go fall into that internet black hole now.
hadashi

not only am i all excited to learn that there are culture-specific, Asian muppets, but thanks for linking to them, thus introducing me to MUPPET WIKI. the world is a warmer, furrier place now, knowing that a site called MuppetWiki exists. pardon me while i go fall into that internet black hole now.
JC

I have never seen a Sesame Street show in Taiwan TV before… I do know that it’s very popular for parents to force kids to watch it in order to brainwash them with English. Sesame Street is known more as a English tutoring school in Taiwan. Kids in Taiwan are busy watching YoYo Channel and singing and dancing with Big Sister Peach and Big Brother Watermelon. No kids in my immediate family know who Big Bird was. Good luck finding it in Taiwan.

I gotta say – those Chinese muppets are rather ugly and scary. At LEAST they don’t have slanted eyes.
JC

I have never seen a Sesame Street show in Taiwan TV before… I do know that it’s very popular for parents to force kids to watch it in order to brainwash them with English. Sesame Street is known more as a English tutoring school in Taiwan. Kids in Taiwan are busy watching YoYo Channel and singing and dancing with Big Sister Peach and Big Brother Watermelon. No kids in my immediate family know who Big Bird was. Good luck finding it in Taiwan.

I gotta say – those Chinese muppets are rather ugly and scary. At LEAST they don’t have slanted eyes.
JC

After further research for Tim’s daughter’s sake, I found that:

1. Chinese Sesame Street is a co-production produced in China. It ended in 2001. Not currently show anywhere (rating may have suffered due to the connotation between the word “Big Bird” and “Huge Penis”)

2. Taiwan used to broadcast the American version of Sesame Street with dubbing on MOMO Kid’s Channel (a weak competitor to the powerful YoYo Channel) up until 2008. It is no longer part of its programming line up. I don’t believe Sesame Street in any incarnation is currently shown in Taiwan Sesame English, however, is one of the top English Cram schools for kids. Your kid can find at least the image of Elmo here: http://www.sesamestreet.com.tw/

MOMO Kid’s TV: http://web1.momokids.com.tw/index.htm
YOYO TV: http://yoyo.ettoday.com/ettv_yoyo/

3. The English version of Sesame Street and SM Play with Me sans dubbing (meaning, the exact same shows on PBS) is broadcast on TVB’s Pearl Channel. As I understood, this is their English Channel with foreign shows and subtitles in Chinese. I don’t think Pearl TV is shown in Taiwan (TVB is HK local TV network). Pearl TV: http://pearl.tvb.com/

You can check out the kids shows if you can read Chinese. Oh Kirarin Revolution is on MOMO TV… that’s what young girls in Asia are into. Give her a head start on IDing Morning Musumes too.
JC

After further research for Tim’s daughter’s sake, I found that:

1. Chinese Sesame Street is a co-production produced in China. It ended in 2001. Not currently show anywhere (rating may have suffered due to the connotation between the word “Big Bird” and “Huge Penis”)

2. Taiwan used to broadcast the American version of Sesame Street with dubbing on MOMO Kid’s Channel (a weak competitor to the powerful YoYo Channel) up until 2008. It is no longer part of its programming line up. I don’t believe Sesame Street in any incarnation is currently shown in Taiwan Sesame English, however, is one of the top English Cram schools for kids. Your kid can find at least the image of Elmo here: http://www.sesamestreet.com.tw/

MOMO Kid’s TV: http://web1.momokids.com.tw/index.htm
YOYO TV: http://yoyo.ettoday.com/ettv_yoyo/

3. The English version of Sesame Street and SM Play with Me sans dubbing (meaning, the exact same shows on PBS) is broadcast on TVB’s Pearl Channel. As I understood, this is their English Channel with foreign shows and subtitles in Chinese. I don’t think Pearl TV is shown in Taiwan (TVB is HK local TV network). Pearl TV: http://pearl.tvb.com/

You can check out the kids shows if you can read Chinese. Oh Kirarin Revolution is on MOMO TV… that’s what young girls in Asia are into. Give her a head start on IDing Morning Musumes too.
Anonymous

Wow. @JC: Thanks for all the research. I guess, I’ll stick to Chinese TV for her when we’re in Taiwan. She already likes “Fruity Pie”, the Chinese kids show on KTSF here in the Bay Area (yes the show with the Chinese guy in drag as a Grandma).
http://gayparenthood.blogspot.com Tim

Wow. @JC: Thanks for all the research. I guess, I’ll stick to Chinese TV for her when we’re in Taiwan. She already likes “Fruity Pie”, the Chinese kids show on KTSF here in the Bay Area (yes the show with the Chinese guy in drag as a Grandma).
JC

@Tim: you’re welcome. Since you have family in Taiwan, one of the easiest way to get your kids (and yourself) to watch more Chinese language TV is to install a Slingbox in your relative’s home. ADSL or fiber connection is pretty cheap in Taiwan, and Taiwan cable is easy to split into the Slingbox. You now have 24×7 access to all Taiwan TV channels. This is what I do and now my wife and I watch Taiwan TV all the time, even in the car with my iPhone (there’s an Slingplayer app). In the States just get a SlingCatcher and hook it up to your TV. For the modeI would recommend an older Pro model you can get from e-bay, being that all you really need is a cable tuner. Now your kid can be addicted to YoYo TV AND Dora the Explorer.

http://www.slingmedia.com/ (how do you do HTML links in these reply boxes?)

Any of you with family in Japan/Korea/PI/etc, you all can do the same. Get your kids watching local Asian TV and they may become more fluent than you are in a few months. Plus they’ll see all those beautiful Asian man, woman, and child on TV and stop believing that White is Right myth blasting on White TV everyday.

Damn I just missed WTO Sisterhood. We just love that show… (it’s about foreign wives in Taiwan talking about their life there).
JC

@Tim: you’re welcome. Since you have family in Taiwan, one of the easiest way to get your kids (and yourself) to watch more Chinese language TV is to install a Slingbox in your relative’s home. ADSL or fiber connection is pretty cheap in Taiwan, and Taiwan cable is easy to split into the Slingbox. You now have 24×7 access to all Taiwan TV channels. This is what I do and now my wife and I watch Taiwan TV all the time, even in the car with my iPhone (there’s an Slingplayer app). In the States just get a SlingCatcher and hook it up to your TV. For the modeI would recommend an older Pro model you can get from e-bay, being that all you really need is a cable tuner. Now your kid can be addicted to YoYo TV AND Dora the Explorer.

http://www.slingmedia.com/ (how do you do HTML links in these reply boxes?)

Any of you with family in Japan/Korea/PI/etc, you all can do the same. Get your kids watching local Asian TV and they may become more fluent than you are in a few months. Plus they’ll see all those beautiful Asian man, woman, and child on TV and stop believing that White is Right myth blasting on White TV everyday.

Damn I just missed WTO Sisterhood. We just love that show… (it’s about foreign wives in Taiwan talking about their life there).
maria

one other unknown character is Tingo! It’s a character conceived between Sesame Street and the international language school I work for. The kids classes are called Sesame and Tingo and we use Sesame street puppets (including a large Tingo puppet) to play with and to introduce new vocabulary with.

I love that part of my job is to mess around with Sesame Street toys !
maria

one other unknown character is Tingo! It’s a character conceived between Sesame Street and the international language school I work for. The kids classes are called Sesame and Tingo and we use Sesame street puppets (including a large Tingo puppet) to play with and to introduce new vocabulary with.

I love that part of my job is to mess around with Sesame Street toys !

8 Asians